Purdy, who had discreetly concealed the fact that he was but a poverty-stricken digger himself, quibbled a light evasion, then changed the subject, and offered his escort to the steam-packet by which Miss Sarah was returning to Melbourne.
"And you, too, dear Tilly," urged little Polly, proceeding with her farewells. "For, mind, you promised. And I won't forget to ... you know what!"
Tilly, sobbing noisily, wept on Polly's neck that she wished she was dead or at the bottom of the sea; and Polly, torn between pride and pain at Purdy's delinquency, could only kiss her several times without speaking.
The farewells buzzed and flew.
"Good-bye to you, little lass ... beg pardon, Mrs. Dr. Mahony!"——
"Mind you write, Poll! I shall die to 'ear."——
"Ta-ta, little silly goosey, and AU REVOIR!"—"Mind he don't pitch you out of the cart, Polly!"—"Good-bye, Polly, my duck, and remember I'll come to you in a winkin', h'if and when ..." which speech on the part of Mrs. Beamish distressed Polly to the verge of tears.
But finally she was torn from their arms and hoisted into the cart; and Mahony, the reins in his hand, began to unstiffen from the wooden figure-head he had felt himself during the ceremony, and under the whirring tongues and whispered confidences of the women.
"And now, Polly, for home!" he said exultantly, when the largest pocket-handkerchief had shrunk to the size of a nit, and Polly had ceased to twist her neck for one last, last glimpse of her friends.
And then the bush, and the loneliness of the bush, closed round them.